On Violence and Power: Assessing Arendt (original) (raw)
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2012
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The problematic of modern violence
Modern violence as practice/discourse undoubtedly finds some of its roots in traditional violence, rather as modern pacifism as practice/discourse is traceable to traditional pacifist notions -however often rendered unrecognizable through profound and unconscious mutations. Let us take as illustrative examples three defining moments in modernity, each a demonstration of the interdependence/overlapping of change between the 'modern' present and the 'traditional' past, and the West and the non-Western parts of the world: the English Civil War/Locke, the French Revolution/Enlightenment and the project of a new global juridical order following World War Two. Each was also an experience of traumatic violence, bringing into question the relation between rapidly changing existence and traditions of value, requiring radical adjustments in institutional accretions, the authority of ideals, imaginings and thought over choice and conduct. If these three moments do not represent a teleological advance towards Condorcet's "true perfection of mankind" through "reason", they certainly represent crucial experiences of learning.
University of Birmingham The concept of violence in international theory
2016
The ability of international ethics and political theory to establish a genuinely critical standpoint from which to evaluate uses of armed force has been challenged by various lines of argument. On one, theorists question the narrow conception of violence on which analysis relies. Were they right, it would overturn two key assumptions: first, that violence is sufficiently distinctive to merit attention as a category separate from other modes of human harming; second, that it is troubling in a special way that makes acts of violence peculiarly hard to justify. This paper defends a narrow understanding of violence and a special ethics governing its use by arguing that a distinctive form of ‘Violent Agency’ is the factor uniting the category while partly accounting for the fearful connotations of the term. Violent Agency is defined first by a double intention [1] to inflict harm using a technique chosen [2] to eliminate or evade the target’s means of escaping it or defending against it...
Murji, Sarah Neal and John Solomos (eds), An Introduction to Sociology, London: Sage: 360-376., 2021
Christian Olsson LEARNING OBJECTIVES • Understand what is at stake in the debates about narrow or broad definitions of violence. • Understand how the social character of humans accounts both for non-violent and violent behaviour irrespective of their aggressiveness or fear of violence. • Understand the link between political power and violence. Framing Questions 1. What is violence and what are its main forms and manifestations? 2. Why and when do people resort to violence? 3. How has war shaped modernity and its institutions?